were turning their heads away, either embarrassed or hiding their grins.
“For a minute, I thought I would have to go in there and help my girl out,” Mecca continued, causing a few in the group to burst into roaring laughter.
“Everything is fine,” I finally answered before throwing a securing arm around Patrena and drawing her into my side.
“A lot of our questions were answered tonight,” Arjen added, glancing back and forth between us.
“I believe all of our questions were answered,” Desiree chimed in before biting into her grin, but she appeared happy for Patrena who hadn’t been brave enough to glance up yet.
Her face was buried in the side of my chest. It hadn’t been my intention to embarrass her, but we couldn’t allow something like age to mess up what I knew was a good thing.
“Not all of our questions were answered,” Mecca disagreed with one of her perfectly-arched brows lifted. This group had no type of shame about their nosiness, that’s for sure.
Arjen stared down at her. “Don’t you think we already know too much? What else do we need to know? You won the bet.”
“I want to know if Patrena still has a problem with his age,” Mecca teased. “I mean it sounded like it was getting sorted out, but I can’t be sure because we couldn’t hear everything. There was also so much begging and pleading going on, shit, I didn’t know if I should have been turned on or scared.” She stared, waiting for one of us to reply while the crowd laughed their asses off. I even had trouble keeping my grin from bursting free.
“You two got the age difference all worked out?” Arjen asked, following his wife’s lead. “I can’t have you scaring my wife and I damn sure won’t have anyone or anything else but me turning her on.” He’d made the statement with a straight face, and I don’t believe he was kidding.
“Lord, have mercy,” Patrena muttered, glancing at her friends under her lashes. Her face was flaming red with embarrassment, and I couldn’t keep the silly smirk off my face.
“I believe we have worked everything out just fine,” I answered the question for us, eyeballing the group no longer hiding their laughter.
I took it all in stride. Their taunting was nothing new to me, and I believe Patrena had begun to come around too when the group finally started to disperse.
Mecca glanced back on our trek to the dining room.
“The food’s getting cold waiting around for y’all. Are you two ready for dinner? Hands and things been washed?”
34
Patrena
Thirty days after I was rescued from the Horizon Group, an early morning call from Denise had my nerves up and running. Tywin and I had no idea where we were going, so we dressed casually in jeans and tennis shoes and packed a backpack with jackets and warm clothing in case we ended up in Antarctica and somewhere near the equator.
We had been stuck together like glue since he, his cousins, and their deadly crew broke me out of that building and especially now since everyone knew we were a couple. The only time I wasn’t with him was when he and Arlo wanted their male-bonding time. I loved seeing the two of them together. They were the essence of one of the most beautiful father-and-son relationships I’d ever witnessed.
Yesterday, it broke my heart to see him part with his son. The way his little man had clung to his neck had made my eyes water. “Just one more day, Daddy. I’ll be good. I promise,” his little shaky voice had begged while two big guards sent by the mother ripped them apart.
Arlo didn’t understand that his father and grandfather would move heaven and earth to have more time with him, but their hands were literally tied. I had no doubt the little boy loved his trifling mother, but I got the impression he preferred his father.
I was unable to fully comprehend why Tywin couldn’t snatch that bitch. I would have at least tried to hire someone to beat that ass. It took him breaking down the intricacies of syndicate rules for me to understand that there were about a hundred reasons why he couldn’t burn that witch at the stake. However, I believed she still needed to be dealt with in other ways to understand that it wasn’t okay to do whatever you wanted because of your position in the organization’s hierarchy.
We had spent countless hours inside Tywin’s secure office in